State Sued Over Bay Dioxin

Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Refinery's Discharge Permit
Challenged by Bay Keepers and CBE

Jane Kay / SF Chronicle 14mar01

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the state yesterday, alleging that it is violating the federal Clean Water Act by allowing an oil refinery to dump excessive amounts of the contaminant dioxin into the San Francisco Bay.

The San Francisco Bay Keeper and Communities for a Better Environment asked the San Francisco Superior Court to set aside a discharge permit issued last year by the State Water Resources Control Board and the regional water board to Ultramar Diamond Shamrock near Martinez.

The permit breaks the federal law because it fails to protect the public, particularly people who fish in the bay, and it delays an end to the discharge of dioxin-contaminated wastewater, the suit said.

In addition, the law prohibits regulators from backsliding after pollution controls have been set, it said. State officials in 1993 had required the former owner, Tosco Corp., to meet stricter controls for dioxins and furans, another contaminant, than does a 2000 permit, the suit said.

Jon Ballesteros, a spokesman for Ultramar, would not comment directly on the suit. He said the refinery would comply with the contested permit, which allows the discharge of 4.7 million gallons a day of wastewater into Suisun Bay.

Ballesteros praised the state board's approach in issuing the permit and said it is "legal and appropriately implements both the spirit and the letter of the Clean Water Act."

Dioxins and furans are highly toxic byproducts formed during combustion, including oil refining. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called some of the compounds the most toxic known to science because they can kill or harm lab animals in minute amounts.

Dioxins also contaminated herbicides, including the infamous Agent Orange, used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and the now-banned 2,4,5-T, which was used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to kill some vegetation in forests.

In 1998, the EPA determined that some species of fish in the bay contained dioxins at unsafe levels. The agency designated the bay as an "impaired water body," indicating that it needed more stringent limitations on dioxins and other pollutants.

Discharged by factories and motor vehicles, the contaminants fall to the ground, then wash into the bay after storms. Or they flow into the bay in effluent from factories. Even at low levels, health officials worry about their presence in the environment.

Yet, regulators are having a hard time controlling the potent compounds.

Sheila Vassey, senior staff counsel at the State Water Resources Control Board, said the refinery's former owner, Tosco, couldn't meet the limits on 17 dioxin and furan compounds imposed in the 1993 permit, to which the suit refers.

"As a practical matter, Tosco had been unable to meet that dioxin limit," Vassey said. Tosco installed treatment equipment to attempt to comply with the permit and was able to capture most of it, she said.

As a solution, the water boards issued the permit last year, which requires the refinery to meet limits on a smaller group of five compounds detected in the effluent until the EPA can finish a comprehensive study about how much of the poison should be allowed into the bay.

According to the regional water board, the refinery's effluent travels through a two-mile canal before it is dumped to the bay. A regional water board survey showed that storm water runoff from city streets flowed into the canal, raising the dioxin levels, Vassey said.

But Greg Karras, senior scientist at Communities for a Better Environment, does not buy that argument.

"The idea that the refinery is not responsible for its discharge is an excuse for the regional board's illegal action that has been thoroughly refuted," said Karras.

"The regional board used the same excuse with selenium and later had to admit that refineries were the biggest source of selenium in the bay," Karras said.

E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com